iPhone 15 Pro Max could come with a periscope lens enabling 5-6x optical zoom

The camera is increasingly one of the biggest selling points of high-end smartphones. Nowadays, a good camera can make or break a flagship. Perhaps this is why many of the major advances year-on-year are precisely in that department.

After giving the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max the 48MP treatment, Apple is now looking to implement another significant upgrade - namely, a periscope lens. According to a recent article by MacRumors, the iPhone 15 Pro Max will feature a "periscope lens”, enabling “up to double the optical zoom”.

The main reason why the addition of a periscope lens is such a big deal for mobile photography enthusiasts is that this technology increases the distance light travels within the camera module and, by extension, facilitates greater optical zoom.

For reference, the iPhone’s current maximum is set at 3x. Hence, MacRumors now expects the iPhone 15 Pro Max to feature “5-6x optical zoom”. Unfortunately, a reduction in the size of the (very) prominent camera bump with the iPhone 15 Pro Max does not look particularly likely. If anything, the upward trend could continue, as most leaks claim that the camera module will grow in size once again.

The periscope lens will set apart the iPhone 15 Pro Max not only from the vanilla iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus, but also from its smaller brother - the iPhone 15 Pro. This could mean that Apple is slowly but steadily continuing its work on further differentiating the Pro and the Pro Max and transforming the latter into an iPhone Ultra.

While this year, we longer expect an iPhone 15 Ultra, most rumors indicate that the periscope will remain exclusively on the 6.7” high-end iPhone, at least for the foreseeable future. In short, a camera-oriented iPhone 16 Pro Max (Ultra) might very well be in the cards.